1 yr. ago • 98%

[Old 1997 story] The Greatest OS That (N)ever Was

www.wired.com The Greatest OS That (N)ever Was

Linus Torvalds and thousands of disparate hackers created Linux, perhaps the only alternative to Windows NT. It may be the greatest software story never completed. Nor yet were you seen neither seen nor heard when this earth was made when the sky was built… – Kalevala 3:245-248 The Kalevala is an ep...

How does this coverage hold up? It was a fun read from back in my highschool days, when I was still five years from trying Linux on my own AMD Thunderbird 1Ghz. It wasn't until 2008 that I tried again and it stuck.

23 comments

Edit: my below comment was actually wrong. They actually do use git.

Thanks for sharing. What I find most interesting is that Linus is still using the same email-based software development methods for the kernel while the rest of the software engineering world has evolved to use his other invention, git, for that. I’m kind of second-hand embarrassed for those geniuses who have yet to adopt proper version control for (what I’d argue is) the most important project in the computing world.

Here’s a far more nuanced explanation from Spore’s reply to this comment :

Git and Email are not mutually exclusive. In order to collaborate with git, you need and only need a way to send your commits to others. Commits can be formatted as plain-text files and sent through emails. That is how git has been used by its author from literally the first release of it.

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- Honestly I'm surprised that so many people don't know how git can be used without those repository hosting sites. That's one way to use it, not the only way. And it's not even the way it was originally designed for.
  
  Checkout git format-patch.
  
  24
  
  I, for one, was quite ignorant of that fact.
  
  10
  
  I'm not so surprised anymore. I'm self-taught using open-source software projects for guidance. But not everyone learns like that. For example in the commercial software dev world, having patches easy to apply with minimum tooling isn't usually a priority (for better or worse).
  
  This is actually a little story I had half written down; your comment prompted me to finish it. Thanks! https://www.srcbeat.com/2023/11/git-email/
  
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- What? Linux does use git for version control.
  
  12
  
  Is this article (and the many sources I see confirming it) inaccurate then?
  
  https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2020/08/25/linux_kernel_email/
  
  I’m happy to be wrong if you have any evidence to refute what I’ve written.
  
  Ps. I’m talking about the kernel.
  
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- Yeah, that's not quite right. You need a means to discuss things and review code. You can do this via a website or mailing list. The Linux kernel uses the latter. Lots of other devs use the former. Like Github. And Github and Git aren't the same. The issue tracking, discussion platform etc are something Github does on top of Git. You can as well use Email or a different service/online platform for the communication. The actual program code is stored in Git in both cases.
  
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- You know that git is also Linus' project, right?
  
  -10
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  22
  
  Wh were you downvoted? You are correct.
  
  Git was originally authored by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development. Since 2005, Junio Hamano has been the core maintainer.
  
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I honestly thought this was going to be about os2

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- I was expecting Copland (what would have been Mac OS 8, had the project survived).
  
  5
- Gosh my dad ran that in the early 90s. Was that Linux? He was then and still is a Microsoft person.
  
  4
  
  I think it was an IBM/MS OS. Forget if it was desktop, server or "other" though.
  
  Edit: that's right, it was IBM hoping to privatize the OS on a hard-to-clone PC (PS/2) when they saw their market share eroding quickly. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/
  
  4
Whatever the actual numbers, it is not unrealistic that Linux will emerge as the second operating system after Windows, especially given Apple's currently confusing sense of direction.

curious for a 27 year old article how accurate it turned to be (androidOS notwithstanding). Windows seems to still be the "2,000-pound gorilla" but there are other options available these days...

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- Windows has lost a ton of market share, unfortunately it gave much of that market share to MacOS
  
  4
You’ve read your last complementary article this month. The second Library of Alexandria doesn’t burn down, it gets locked behind a paywall.

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This is funny because 2008 is also when I got stuck on it. Interesting read, thanks for sharing!

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